Excerpts from
The Day We Were Liberated
By Pablo Henrik Llambias
A few days later I had written my presentation and started the environmental
group ‘Soft Terror’. I thought the name
sounded a bit swish and somehow even had a sort of street cred. I was pretty convinced that its logo would
look perfectly at home in the layout of a lifestyle magazine for the very
young. The presentation, on the other
hand, consisted of a rather dry enumeration of some of the little beauties that
slipped out of the exhaust pipe of a car.
So far, the group only had one member,
and that was me. I had considered
getting in touch with some of the more established groups in town, but thought
that the idea I had had was so good that I didn’t want to risk sharing the
credit for it with anyone else. Consequently
I was rather by myself.
‘Soft Terror’ had - and personally I
found this a stroke of genius - as its main direct action the sticking of
provocative stickers onto parked cars. The
sticker, which was to be stuck just above the exhaust pipe, read: ‘This car
pollutes with C02 plus 38 carcinogenic agents.’ Signed: ‘Soft Terror’. I
had designed the label myself and had it printed by a sticker manufacturer out
in Glostrup. He had promised not to
talk about it to anyone. He had been
there in ’68. He smiled wistfully at me
when I came and went and took the stickers with me.
I had spent the following nights going
round town putting the stickers on parked cars. What happened was, I put on a half-length ski jacket, under which
I carried the bag of stickers. I had to
be ready to get rid of the stickers at any second if I spotted the police. And I kept an eye out. I kept an eye on every single sign of life
in the deserted street down which I was walking between four and five o’clock
at night. Just the tiniest shifting
shadow in the street scene and I straightened my back and walked on as if
nothing had happened. As if I was on my
way to work, or on my way home from town. I had no desire to be caught in the act. I was frightened of being beaten up - or worse. Consequently, I worked my way down the
street against the direction in which the parked cars were facing. In that way I was certain to get a quick
glance inside each car before moving round to the back of it.
I noticed how much dust there was on
many of the cars. And how much carbon
had crept out of the exhaust and up onto the bodywork and bumper. Sometimes I had to press really hard to make
the sticker stay put. Other times I
gave up. But when the sticker stayed
put straight away, I knew it would be difficult for the owner to get it off
again. The adhesive was extra
strong. I had explicitly asked that it
should have almost solvent properties, so that it would bond with the plastic
on the bumper or the varnish on the bodywork. Thus it would be almost impossible to get off without damaging the
car. I knew that the
vandalism-potential aspect of the sticker would attract special attention to it
in the course of a very few days. A
less strongly sticking sticker would not attract nearly as much attention. I knew that I would have to step on
someone’s toes to get the response I wanted. Some people had to get cross. Preferably
some people with influence. People in
big cars with a huge petrol consumption and a self-professed right to pollute
more than others: did they not discharge more important duties than most? Was it therefore not more necessary that
they, above all others, should be able to get around quicker and more
safely? A luxury ministerial limousine
would be my ideal target.
Translated by Gaye Kynoch
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